Monday, December 3, 2012

I Am, It Turns Out

Last Thursday I was on a really interesting panel about feminism at
BYU. I asked my sister Lucy to film my five
minute introduction but because my statements were so fascinating she
got caught up in my words and forgot to film. That's what I told myself
anyway.The five other panelists were all involved with academia and I was
the token non-academic. They talked about how feminism shapes their
work--life sciences, public health, Spanish and Portuguese 1700
literature, comparative film and theater. Then I talked about how I was
really upset because one time Chup came home from his really busy job
and didn't help me with the baby. So, that was me.

While
sitting there listening to the other presenters it occurred to me that
in our search for equality and cooperation at home, Chup and I have had
some of the most brilliant experiences of our lives. My faith in God and
Mormonism has deepened. It's been a tough road, it's come at some
pretty high prices and heartache, but I cannot deny the blessings. Oh
those unbelievable blessings.

I also think it's been important for me to identify myself as a Mormon feminist because I have found strength in being part of a people and passion I can relate to in my heart. I feel "home" when I say I am a feminist, it feels like me. It feels peaceful. Over the weekend I cleaned up my intro and added some clarity, I am not certain it all makes sense, and I am evolving, but these are my thoughts right now. Thank you to the students for asking me to come and for Dr. Holmes for hosting the panel:

My name is Courtney Kendrick, I am a writer and blogger at
CJaneKendrick.com, a columnist for the Deseret News and a Downtown Provo
community activist. I’ve been married for ten years to
Christopher Kendrick and we have three children with one on the way.

Earlier this year I had lunch with Joanna Brooks, arguably
Mormonism’s most vocal feminist. The meeting was unforgettable, but two
specific thoughts have not been able to leave my mind since our lunch in
downtown Provo:

One, Joanna wasn’t angry like I thought most feminists were.
She was confident and open, honest and funny.

Two, I couldn’t tell her I was a feminist at that point, I
was too afraid of what it meant, so I said, “I am a womanist,” and she said to
me, “That’s a great word to use if feminist scares you.”

Feminism scared me because I defined it this way: the theory
of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes.

And the word equality was an idea that scared me.

Joanna wasn’t angry but I was. I had just started to write
my life story which included a long extensive look at some of my triumphs and
failures—relationships, my mission, a divorce, graduating from college and
remarriage, body image issues, infertility—and I started to see that all of my
choices, insecurities, frustrations and determination were centered around one
driving thought I had arrived at in my childhood: women were less important than men.

Thinking I was entitled to equality made me feel vulnerable and hurt because at the expense of relationships, I had spent so much time telling myself it didn't matter. I had almost convinced myself.

As
a child I remember thinking how sad it was that God
didn’t love me as much as my brothers and boy cousins because I was a
girl. Of course, I had moments where I refused to believe this sentiment and the frustration I felt in wanting to be treated equal only exacerbated the problem. Anger and frustration from women only proved why they weren't to be trusted with something like the priesthood. Besides, questioning equality was
considered "dangerous," and could only lead one place: a faithlessness
in God and apostasy.

I began to believe my only worth as a woman was in being attached to a man. This created desperation inside of me to get married at a young age. Eventually, I married the wrong person, hoping to make things right. At my family bridal shower my aunt
gave me
the advice “When he comes home from work, don’t say anything to him,
just hand
him the remote control.”

When my first marriage ended in total devastation and abuse,
I started to rethink gender roles for the first time. I started to resent the
way women were treated in a lot of the relationships I had observed growing up.

After I remarried I looked for a man with maturity and fairness.
I found an amazingone. Our young marriage had complications but we seemed to
overcome until he took a corporate job traveling around the country. At that
time I had our first baby and was getting used to that business. But everything
came crashing down on me one day when after staying up with the baby alone for
nearly week, battling a terrible cold and feeling lonely, I looked forward to
the help of my husband. But when the front door opened and he came inside, he
merely glanced at me, threw his suitcases on the floor and announced that he
was so tired and was going to bed.

I was shocked. I realized that he saw his job as his
responsibility and when his job was over, when it was time to come home, he was
free to relax and sleep. Meanwhile, my job “mothering” never had the same
finality to it. I was never, ever going to be done. Not for eternity. I was
never going to sleep ever again.

Was I really supposed to stay silent and hand over the remote?

Somehow those same oldgender roles had crept into our marriage and
we were equating my husband’s job with motherhood which was painfully false.
Fatherhood and motherhood are equal pairs. We both should never, ever sleep
again. (insert: smiley face)

After a few years of trying to figure things out, we finally
decided a new approach. We were both unhappy with our situation—he was never
home and I never left home. He would quit his job and we would utilize a “farm
mentality” where we would each put in 100% of all the work. This meant there
were no roles, we both worked, we both parented, we both cleaned the house and
took responsibility for the totality of our lives. When I worked writing and
blogging, he cleaned and took care of the children, when he produced or acted
in film I was at home. This continues to this day, and it’s hard because it’s
socially abnormal and financially precarious. But every time we want to quit,
we remember social acceptance and financial success are not our goal. Showing
our children respect and cooperation at home is our hope.

This idea of having equal voices and opportunities has challenged us to explore the way we live in almost all aspects of our lives--childbirth, parenting, teaching our children the gospel. We have prayed and studied our religion's belief in family including The Family: A Proclamation and have found a lot of peace with who we are and where we are going as a family--considering our skills and talents. (We've also been very challenged to dig deep and think hard, it hasn't been a road of roses and applause.) God has made man and woman equal with shared powers and vibrant voices. I also have begun to see changes in the church about women and the Divine Female and it thrills to be to see how prayers are being answered by those who are asking with faith. I am grateful for the spiritual and political feminists who came before me.

After years of listening and learning from feminists I admire, I still felt unsafe calling myself a feminist until this summer. My
older sister Page had come to one of the Rooftop Concerts my blog hosts in downtown
Provo. Amid the thousands of concert goers I found her dancing and enjoying the
music. I felt proud of myself for helping to accomplish something big and it occurred
to me suddenly, that I was successful, even though I was a girl.

“Hey,” I said to her loudly, “did you grow up thinking boys
were more important than girls?”

“Yes!” she yelled back.

“But you believe we are equal?” I shouted.

“Of course.” She shouted back.

“So, are you a feminist?” I yelled.

“Yes.” She screamed.

And that’s when I finally declared, “SO AM I!”

You can often tell if the media and technology in your life are having a positive or negative effect
on your soul by the quality of the media conversations you are having.
We should regularly ask ourselves three questions: First, am I having
media conversations, or am I simply consuming media? Second, what
conversations am I having about media with my family and those closest
to me? Third, what am I doing to improve the conversations around me
when I use media to communicate?
-Amy Peterson Jensen